"Great article! The situation was very similar in Singapore up to the PS2/XBox era.
Bootleg carts for NES and Genesis.
Floppy disks reader add-on for the SNES
Bootleg CDs for the PS1, Saturn
Bootleg DVDs for the PS2, Xbox
Those were, sadly the norm back then. Original carts cost a bomb due to import prices, same for the subsequent discs media games.
And the fact that when Sony did decide to officially launched the PlayStation here, they decided that the English speaking nation of ours should play all their titles in Japanese only, only made getting official and legal copies less appealing for the local community.
Also, to a certain extend, its not just the price that's keeping the people away, even when you got the cash, most game retail stores only "specialized" in bootleg products!
It was only until Microsoft brought in the Xbox, did we start seeing proper, official titles in English and with a reasonable price tag for the games. Around the same time, there was a huge crackdown on all bootleg IP products in Singapore and amazingly they managed to "wipe out" piracy to some sense (though those who still can't kick the "habit" started to go to a neighboring country where pirated products are still in abundance)
With the arrival of the XBOX360, PS3 and Wii, console piracy is now an old shady part of history for the community here. The current systems offer much more benefit, un-modded, with its online components, legal titles are available everywhere, at very reasonable price. Some form of piracy is still around, but is largely frown upon by the gaming community.
I guess another reason for the decline in piracy,is that the young student pirated gamers community from up to a decade plus ago, have no excuse that "they only have their pocket money to spend on games" since by now, most of them are working adults. It's a good time to be a gamer in Singapore now : )"
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Bootleg carts for NES and Genesis.
Floppy disks reader add-on for the SNES
Bootleg CDs for the PS1, Saturn
Bootleg DVDs for the PS2, Xbox
Those were, sadly the norm back then. Original carts cost a bomb due to import prices, same for the subsequent discs media games.
And the fact that when Sony did decide to officially launched the PlayStation here, they decided that the English speaking nation of ours should play all their titles in Japanese only, only made getting official and legal copies less appealing for the local community.
Also, to a certain extend, its not just the price that's keeping the people away, even when you got the cash, most game retail stores only "specialized" in bootleg products!
It was only until Microsoft brought in the Xbox, did we start seeing proper, official titles in English and with a reasonable price tag for the games. Around the same time, there was a huge crackdown on all bootleg IP products in Singapore and amazingly they managed to "wipe out" piracy to some sense (though those who still can't kick the "habit" started to go to a neighboring country where pirated products are still in abundance)
With the arrival of the XBOX360, PS3 and Wii, console piracy is now an old shady part of history for the community here. The current systems offer much more benefit, un-modded, with its online components, legal titles are available everywhere, at very reasonable price. Some form of piracy is still around, but is largely frown upon by the gaming community.
I guess another reason for the decline in piracy,is that the young student pirated gamers community from up to a decade plus ago, have no excuse that "they only have their pocket money to spend on games" since by now, most of them are working adults. It's a good time to be a gamer in Singapore now : )"